the big sister she was never given
by kathleenfergie
Summary: "I just don't want this kid to think that I hate him, too, because I don't." Set after 3b, Emma and Charming have a father-daughter discussion on her brother and Emma's past. Oneshot.


just a little short daddy charming oneshot because that relationship gives me all the feelings.

and yeah we all know i can't title things for shit, so we're just gonna go with this for now. cool.

we're just going to disregard the frozen shit, but it's post-zelena.

i don't own shit but damn, josh dallas can call me anytime. jmo, too. the whole cast is just gorgeous.

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><p>"I dream about it sometimes, you know," she says quietly to him one night after Snow has gone to bed. He stays up usually to make sure the little one isn't too fussy and she's there because…well she's just there.<p>

Father and daughter are looking at the crib they built together and she's got a sad smile on her face that says more than he'll ever know, but he tries, tries to know her as much as he can.

"About what, Emma?"

"My nursery, the one in the Enchanted Forest." It's such a simple concept, a room built for her, but there's so much history behind it. "I kept my baby blanket, after all these years." She laughs. "I remember when I first moved in here, before the curse broke, Mary Margaret cuddled it and breathed it in and there was just this lost look on her face that I could never understand."

"Snow has a lot of pain buried deep inside her when it comes to your birth, I'm not surprised that even in our cursed state she felt it." David looks at her from the other side of the couch and wishes she was a little girl, spinning around in dresses and tiaras. He never meant for her to build armour out of her own skin.

"When I was a kid, I had a lot of dreams about the castle, about the two of you. Neither of you had faces, but I knew you were my parents. Little me just thought it was some inner girly desire to be a princess, but here we are." Emma looks pained momentarily, and he wants to smooth the creases out of her forehead. He's reminded of Snow in those months leading to her birth, where there was so much worry in her eyes. "Zelena asked me if I hated him, the baby, for having what I didn't, what I can never get back."

It hurts him, that she has to feel these things, that she's got so much inside of her that has dug itself a permanent home. He silently curses the Swans, for giving her away even though she was so happy with them.

"We're not going to give you up just because of him. The two of you mean more to us than we could ever describe, Emma." He wants to hug her, wants to press a kiss to her small forehead, but he doesn't, because she's still so uncomfortable with all of that. He decides to simply hold her hand and she sucks in a breath as he grabs onto it, her palm clenching around his. "Snow cried a lot during this pregnancy. During yours she was more calm, despite the fact we knew what was coming for us. The idea, however, that we couldn't give you your family for the second time, that we were abandoning you again, weighed on her a lot."

"I know. After your curse broke, she told me everything. The day Zelena almost hurt Henry I was in such a wreck and we talked about a lot of things. Not everything, but a lot of things." Emma pauses thoughtfully, exhaling deeply. "I don't hate him, he's just a baby, but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to call him anything but 'hey there,' or 'kid.'"

He's puzzled. Of course he knows that there's a lot of pain and history with Emma and Neal, but David and Snow thought that they had seen enough of the hero inside him. Choosing Graham as his middle name was easy, as well. The sheriff and the huntsman was very much in the couple's debt.

"What did he do?"

So she tells him. Tells him everything. She probably won't ever tell her mother, just because she can't do that to her, the woman has enough guilt in her belly without this on top of it, but she can tell him because he understands her a lot more than she wants to think about. His hand grips hers tighter and she's crying and he wants to hold her like she's still an infant, but he doesn't.

"I gave up Henry to give him his best chance, I did, but I also gave him up because I didn't want to look at him everyday and remember who he came from, what Neal did to me." She lets out a shuddering breath. "I never held him, not once. In my fake memories I did, and I can still feel that, but in the real ones I couldn't. He was born in the afternoon, and later that night I couldn't sleep, so I walked to the nursery and looked at him through the window. He was so small, so damn precious, and he didn't have a name but I loved and hated him all at once."

"Henry knows now that you love him, Emma." He is glad, however, that now she has someone who he knows won't leave her, as reluctant as he is to let Killian into their family. He knows the pirate isn't just going to desert her.

"I know, I know." She looks at him and her wet, green eyes are full of a lot of things he can't describe. "I just don't want this kid to think that I hate him, too, because I don't."

The baby makes an entrance from his sleepy haze and lets out a wail, and David jumps up to quiet him, scooping him out of the crib into his arms. The sad smile returns to her face as she looks at her father and brother. Emma knows that her New York memories were all Regina's, from the early years, knows that Henry's endless crying was a real thing that his adoptive mother had felt for so many weeks, and she wishes they had been her memories, something she could have felt for herself.

After the interruption, Emma wipes her tears as she watches David settle the baby back down, and she gets up, looking down at the starfished infant in his crib, rubbing his belly.

She goes to bed with aching eyes but as the weeks move on she helps a lot, acts like the big sister she was never given in any of her homes. She doesn't want this kid to think that she hates him, because she doesn't, she just doesn't have the energy for it. Most nights she sends her parents to bed and watches the little one as he sleeps, or if he's fussy she picks him up, bouncing and telling him Henry's stories.

She doesn't know when it starts, but they call him by his middle name more often than not and she breathes a sigh of relief. Henry doesn't really understand, but he's a teenager, so she thinks that she'll wait until he's an adult before letting him know the truth about everything.

The first time Killian sees her holding the baby she watches as him mouth goes dry and his words fail and she thinks she can do this, this whole mother, sister, daughter, lover thing she's got going.

She doesn't hate her brother and she stops hating herself as well, and slowly, she sheds her armour piece by piece.


End file.
